Guide to Weird Band Names (from Independent)

Bonkers monikers? There's logic to the current crop of bizarre band names: it's getting harder to find an original one, says David Sinclair Published: 29 September 2006

The vogue for bizarre band names has grown on the pop world like a Russian vine. Even a moniker as silly as Arctic Monkeys now seems quite sensible when compared to such names as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Bullet for My Valentine, Snowfight in the City Centre, Living with Eating Disorders or Dogs Die in Hot Cars, to name but a few.

Other acts go further, and add punctuation marks to the mix, as per the Texan band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, or Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - the nom du rock of the 20-year-old singer from Southend known to his mum as Sam Duckworth. Exclamation marks, too, are popular, spicing up already over- heated names such as The Go! Team; Panic! At the Disco, You Say Party! We Say Die! and the Canadian group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Some bands, meanwhile, make waggish use of spacing (Alexisonfire) or weird combina- tions of upper and lower cases (iLiKETRAiNS). Still others have filtered out boring old letters altogether. The band from Sacramento via New York called !!! (known verbally as "chk chk chk") was declared "the hardest band name to Google" by Spin magazine.

But there is a serious side to the quest for ever-more quirky names. With so many acts from all over the world now trading in such close proximity to each other - thanks to the internet - the chance of suffering a clash has never been more likely.

Take the case of a metalcore band from London called Cyanide. Not such a bad name. But a quick search on MySpace reveals an astonishing tally of more than 50 acts presenting themselves as Cyanide, from as far afield as Stockholm, Norwich, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Colorado and Carlisle. And if any one of those bands were to sign a recording contract and release a big-selling album, the chances are they would find a queue of other Cyanides - and their lawyers - seeking to prove a prior claim to ownership of the name.

This happened when Nirvana, the kings of Nineties grunge, from Seattle, were successfully sued by Nirvana, the progressive rock group from London who released a string of albums between 1967 and the early 1970s, and enjoyed one minor hit with "Rainbow Chaser" in 1968. The terms of the settlement were never revealed, but it seems possible that the UK Nirvana enjoyed a pay-off from their American cousins that was considerably in excess of any receipts they had earned from recent sales of their own recordings.

Other high-profile bands have run into similar difficulties. Verve became The Verve after legal representations from the jazz record label Verve. The Charlatans are obliged, when in America, to refer to themselves as The Charlatans UK, to distinguish themselves from the 1960s American band of the same name. And Blink 182 added the number to their original name when they were threatened by legal action from an Irish band called Blink.

In 2003, the boy band Blue reached an unusual agreement in the High Court with the 1970s rock band Blue (by then aged in their fifties) that both parties could continue using the same name since, as the judge put it, "fans were hardly likely to confuse one band with the other". This was something of a disappointment for the older Blue "boys", who were suing their youthful counterparts for the wildly optimistic sum of £5m.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, there is a specialist website designed to put an end to all this misery. For the princely sum of $12 (£6.40), any artist can register their name at www.bandname.com, thereby lending moral and apparently legal weight to their claim to that name. "It's all about establishing an audit trail of prior usage," says the founder of the website, Paul Berrow. "It acts as a deposit of musicians' intent to use a certain name and records it for posterity."

According to Berrow, disputes over names is a growing problem, especially now that everybody is operating on the web. "In the past, bands with the same name in different territories would not have been aware of each other unless they became successful in each other's markets," he says. "Now they are all colliding in cyberspace."

Berrow is aware of "three or four" serious conflicts over band names already this year, but is coy about giving specific examples of when his website has been helpful in resolving such disputes. Registering with Bandname certainly shored up the case of Liberty, the 1990s funk band from east London, when they discovered that their name had been appropriated by a group from the Popstars television talent contest. The ex-Popstars band had already enjoyed two hits under the name of Liberty and were about to release their third single when a High Court ruling in 2002 forced them to change their name to Liberty X.

But Bandname.com is not a panacea. A quick search of its registry reveals six bands named Cyanide. The two from Adelaide, both formed in 2000, are clearly duplicates, while the others - from Northern Ireland (formed 1999), New Jersey (no date), Dhaka, Bangladesh (2000) and Reading, US (2005) - leave few clues to their activities or current status. Interestingly, the London Cyanide have since changed their name to Send Forth the Colony. Not such a snappy sobriquet perhaps, but unique - at least for now.

The vogue for bizarre band names has grown on the pop world like a Russian vine. Even a moniker as silly as Arctic Monkeys now seems quite sensible when compared to such names as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Bullet for My Valentine, Snowfight in the City Centre, Living with Eating Disorders or Dogs Die in Hot Cars, to name but a few.

Other acts go further, and add punctuation marks to the mix, as per the Texan band ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, or Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - the nom du rock of the 20-year-old singer from Southend known to his mum as Sam Duckworth. Exclamation marks, too, are popular, spicing up already over- heated names such as The Go! Team; Panic! At the Disco, You Say Party! We Say Die! and the Canadian group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Some bands, meanwhile, make waggish use of spacing (Alexisonfire) or weird combina- tions of upper and lower cases (iLiKETRAiNS). Still others have filtered out boring old letters altogether. The band from Sacramento via New York called !!! (known verbally as "chk chk chk") was declared "the hardest band name to Google" by Spin magazine.

But there is a serious side to the quest for ever-more quirky names. With so many acts from all over the world now trading in such close proximity to each other - thanks to the internet - the chance of suffering a clash has never been more likely.

Take the case of a metalcore band from London called Cyanide. Not such a bad name. But a quick search on MySpace reveals an astonishing tally of more than 50 acts presenting themselves as Cyanide, from as far afield as Stockholm, Norwich, Los Angeles, New Delhi, Colorado and Carlisle. And if any one of those bands were to sign a recording contract and release a big-selling album, the chances are they would find a queue of other Cyanides - and their lawyers - seeking to prove a prior claim to ownership of the name.

This happened when Nirvana, the kings of Nineties grunge, from Seattle, were successfully sued by Nirvana, the progressive rock group from London who released a string of albums between 1967 and the early 1970s, and enjoyed one minor hit with "Rainbow Chaser" in 1968. The terms of the settlement were never revealed, but it seems possible that the UK Nirvana enjoyed a pay-off from their American cousins that was considerably in excess of any receipts they had earned from recent sales of their own recordings.

Other high-profile bands have run into similar difficulties. Verve became The Verve after legal representations from the jazz record label Verve. The Charlatans are obliged, when in America, to refer to themselves as The Charlatans UK, to distinguish themselves from the 1960s American band of the same name. And Blink 182 added the number to their original name when they were threatened by legal action from an Irish band called Blink.In 2003, the boy band Blue reached an unusual agreement in the High Court with the 1970s rock band Blue (by then aged in their fifties) that both parties could continue using the same name since, as the judge put it, "fans were hardly likely to confuse one band with the other". This was something of a disappointment for the older Blue "boys", who were suing their youthful counterparts for the wildly optimistic sum of £5m.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, there is a specialist website designed to put an end to all this misery. For the princely sum of $12 (£6.40), any artist can register their name at www.bandname.com, thereby lending moral and apparently legal weight to their claim to that name. "It's all about establishing an audit trail of prior usage," says the founder of the website, Paul Berrow. "It acts as a deposit of musicians' intent to use a certain name and records it for posterity."

According to Berrow, disputes over names is a growing problem, especially now that everybody is operating on the web. "In the past, bands with the same name in different territories would not have been aware of each other unless they became successful in each other's markets," he says. "Now they are all colliding in cyberspace."

Berrow is aware of "three or four" serious conflicts over band names already this year, but is coy about giving specific examples of when his website has been helpful in resolving such disputes. Registering with Bandname certainly shored up the case of Liberty, the 1990s funk band from east London, when they discovered that their name had been appropriated by a group from the Popstars television talent contest. The ex-Popstars band had already enjoyed two hits under the name of Liberty and were about to release their third single when a High Court ruling in 2002 forced them to change their name to Liberty X.

But Bandname.com is not a panacea. A quick search of its registry reveals six bands named Cyanide. The two from Adelaide, both formed in 2000, are clearly duplicates, while the others - from Northern Ireland (formed 1999), New Jersey (no date), Dhaka, Bangladesh (2000) and Reading, US (2005) - leave few clues to their activities or current status. Interestingly, the London Cyanide have since changed their name to Send Forth the Colony. Not such a snappy sobriquet perhaps, but unique - at least for now.

Good Book, Good Manners from Canton Rep in OH

Unlike all those times you go to concerts, baseball games or monster truck rallies, when you go to a reading at a bookstore you have to be on your best behavior. I’m not saying this just to audience members (who are usually saints among saints), but also to the authors themselves. I’ve been organizing and hosting events for almost nine years and I’ve seen my share of terribleness on both sides of the microphone. Here’s some tips on what NOT to do at literary events.

AUDIENCE: Don’t bring weird gifts. A few years back, a fan gave David Sedaris a hideous sculpture of a naked person. How he was going to take this on an airplane was probably not considered. After the reading, Mr. Sedaris kindly asked me to dispose of the statue and some of the other “gifts” he had received, including homebaked foods (suspicious), vanity press books (sad), and a T-shirt (I’ve noticed that people who give authors T-shirts are usually affiliated with some kooky political group).

AUTHOR: Don’t be a prima donna. One popular and prolific children’s book author gave our event hosts a lashing after finding out that we were selling some of his books used (uh, we are a new AND used bookstore). The next day we told his publicist we didn’t want him back. Authors should remember that booksellers are the ones selling their books (and we can return them if we feel like it too). One spiritual author of international repute has treated our staff like his personal servants on more than one occasion. As a result, you’ll never see an employee recommend his books. The lesson here is: Don’t be a jerk.

AUDIENCE: Don’t be easily offended. At Eric Bogosian’s hilarious reading last year, he started off by describing his morning TV appearance that day. He made a snarky comment about some older ladies in the studio audience. As he was about to read from his book, a woman in the front row got up and stormed out, leaving a note at the podium. Bogosian grabbed the note and inquired to the lady about it. She shouted something back to him about how he shouldn’t make fun of old ladies. Bogosion read the note to the audience, who laughed uncomfortably.

AUTHOR: Don’t smoke at your reading. For one thing, it’s probably against the law in 48 states, and for another thing, it stinks up the books. Legs McNeil — I’m looking at you, pal.

AUDIENCE:Don’t draw undue attention to yourself: People came to see the author talk about their book, not to watch you brush your long, stinky hair. One of the worst attention-getters recently was an older gentleman who wore short shorts and sat in the front row, directly in front of the female author.

AUTHOR: Don’t go on forever. This is one the most common mistakes of the author and probably one of the reasons why more people don’t go to literary events. Listening to someone read for longer than fifteen minutes can be like watching C-Span. When it gets to the booksigning part, don’t gab to every fan for five minutes. Some people have to be home before midnight.

AUDIENCE: Phrase your question into a question. Some audience questions sound more like philosophical rants with a question mark tacked on somewhere (often in the middle). Think before you speak is the general rule here.

AUTHOR: Don’t show up drunk. We had the pleasure of having two authors who were reading together both show up drunk one night. The tension was apparent during the event and after the signing (for a spiritual book the two had co-written, naturally), both authors left with shady-looking ladies of a professional nature (if you know what I mean).

AUDIENCE: Don’t show up drunk. Yeah, it goes both ways. We don’t want the stench of burped beer on our books and we don’t want to clean up your puke when Chuck Palahniuk gets to that gross part in that one story. Sure, some readings may make you crave a vodka tonic, but that’s what after-functions are for.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Post Us

"My life is an open book. With illustrations" and other words from The Idol

If they say Hef, they know me. If they say Hugh, they don't. I have slept with thousands of women, and they all still like me. Women were the major beneficiary of the sexual revolution. It permitted them to be natural sexual beings, as men are. That's where feminism should have been all along. Unfortunately, within feminism, there has been a puritan, prohibitionist element that is antisexual.Playboy is the antidote to puritanism. In the 1950s and '60s, there were still states that outlawed birth control, so I started funding court cases to challenge that. At the same time, I helped sponsor the lower-court cases that eventually led to Roe v. Wade. We were the amicus curiae in Roe v. Wade. I was a feminist before there was such a thing as feminism. That's a part of history very few people know. Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy. There isn't a whole lot of point to living half the year in a lousy climate. Every man should have a Hitachi Wand. It's a very good vibrator. We're separated by our myths. One of the problems with organized religion is that it has always kept women in a second-class position. They have been viewed as the daughters of Eve. I stand in total awe of existence. I don't pretend to know what it's about. My best pick-up line is "My name is Hugh Hefner." Most people don't have much of a clue as to why they act the way they do. Usually when they're angry, they're not angry about what they think they're angry about.It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people. My life has been a quest for a world where the words to the songs are true. Not the songs today. Not "Who Let the Dogs Out." The romantic songs. Gershwin, Cole Porter . . Hollywood has many, many excesses and a great many not very nice people, but that's true anywhere. The difference between Hollywood and New York is that it's all out in the open. Living in the moment, thinking about the future, and staying connected to the past: That's what makes me feel whole.A lot of people go through life never quite understanding that if things aren't as wonderful as they should be, it's their own fault. This is the blessing of humankind, what separates us from the animals: to dream. When I'm alone, masturbation isn't bad. But I don't spend a lot of time alone. There's a real hypocrisy about people who pursue fame for the first half of their lives and then pretend to resent it afterward. What surprises me about getting older is that I remain so young. If you don't have a sense of humor about life and yourself, then you are old. Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.Gloria Steinem said that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And now she's married to a wealthy guy. So what does that say to you? Everybody, if they've got their head on straight, wants to be a sexual object, among other things. They want to be attractive. Otherwise, what a sad and pathetic life. To really live a worthwhile life is to be attracted to and attractive to other people. One of the great ironies in our society is that we celebrate freedom and then limit the parts of life where we should be most free.When you are in a position to not be a nice person, that's when you find out who you really are.I wake up every day and go to bed every night knowing I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.My house is pretty much in order. When it comes, it comes. But my mother lived to be 101, so knock on wood.The best part of any relationship is the beginning.My favorite nightcap is Jack Daniel's and Coke. Or Pepsi. You get the Jack Daniel's in there, it doesn't matter.My views have evolved from childhood, but I haven't changed my mind in a very dramatic way. I've always felt I was on the side of the angels.My life is an open book. With illustrations.

MLB

No 20-game winner for the MLB pitchers this year. This never happened before. The Red Sox never recovered from that 5-game loss to New York. The White Sox are also out. Come to think of it. Those without sox might just win it this year. Not the Mets because of the injuries. The Yankees? They have their own curse. The 9-11 Curse.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Ivory

Star Wars Kid

Remember the Star Wars kid? That fat boy who filmed himself swinging what I later learned is a golf ball retriever like a Star Wars lightsaber? His home film was copied and recopied and went around the Internet. I even signed an online petition for him to appear in the 2nd Star Wars prologue. I didn't know I was adding to his sorrow. Here's a bit on that:

Raza reportedly suffered considerable embarrassment, in part because the video showed him to be overweight, and not particularly graceful. The case raised privacy issues and was extensively reported in mainstream news media worldwide, including the New York Times, CBS News and BBC News. The boy had to undergo therapy and counseling that began on October 12 and is currently still suffering chronic depression.

Tokyo Rose R.I.P,

I first read about tokyo Rose in an old Esquire mag and even thought if she is part Pinoy or maybe married a Pinoy (I think her husband was Japanese also). Here's NY Times' obit on Tokyo Rose: Iva Toguri D’Aquino, the Japanese-American convicted of treason in 1949 for broadcasting propaganda from Japan to United States servicemen in World War II as the seductive but sinister Tokyo Rose, died Tuesday in Chicago. Mrs. D’Aquino, who served more than six years in prison but steadfastly denied disloyalty and received a presidential pardon in 1977, was 90.

Her death, at a Chicago hospital, was confirmed by a nephew, William Toguri, who said only that Mrs. D’Aquino had died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.

Tokyo Rose was a mythical figure. The persona, its origin murky, had been bestowed by American servicemen collectively on a dozen or so women who, seductive but sinister, broadcast for Radio Tokyo, telling soldiers, sailors and marines in the Pacific that their cause was lost and that their sweethearts back home were betraying them.

The broadcasts did nothing to dim American morale. The servicemen enjoyed the recordings of American popular music, and the United States Navy bestowed a satirical citation on Tokyo Rose at war’s end for her entertainment value.

But the identity of Tokyo Rose became attached to Mrs. D’Aquino, a native of Southern California and the only woman broadcasting for Radio Tokyo known to be an American citizen. She emerged as an infamous figure in a rare treason trial.

Convicted in 1949 by a federal jury in San Francisco on one of eight vaguely worded counts, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. She served 6 years and 2 months, then lived quietly in Chicago, running a family gift shop. On Jan. 19, 1977, she was pardoned, without comment, by President Gerald R. Ford on his last full day in office, restoring her citizenship.

Siling Labuyo is not so Hot

We were born to believe that our siling labuyo is the hottest pepper, bar none. Now they are telling us it is India's Naga Jolokia pepper. it looks like the Habanero and sometimes incorrectly claimed to be a Capsicum frutescens (like our labuyo) but most experts agree that it is a Capsicum chinense. In 2000 it was reported to have a rating of 855,000 units on the Scoville scale, and later 1,041,427 units (through HPLC analysis in 2004), which would mean it is hotter than the hybrid cultivar Red Savina pepper. Siling labuyo aka piquin or prik khee nu in Thai measures 300,000 to 500,000 Scoville Units, way below jolokia but is 7-8 times hotter than jalapeños on the Scoville scale. Nora Aunor was once quoted as saying na if there's a typhoon coming, ang unang prinoprotektahan ay ang alagang sili. This is also the same yarn I ehard about Kalingas. Anyway there are refuations on the Naga Jolokia so we may have yet to get our image back

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Don't Judge My Brother. We are One and The Same and He is Not a Book: The Book

MM is finally coming out with her own book of her distinctive Engrish. "Even if you are not good at English, you should improve yourself, wag kang pikon, have no pretensions, be sincere," she said in an interview. The quotable quotes include:

Jungle Toilet

A Case for Siesta

If you are trying to commit something to memory, take a nap. Even a short daytime snooze could help you learn. A good night's sleep is known to improve people's ability to learn actions such as mirror writing. REM sleep, when most dreaming occurs, is thought to be particularly important. The role of sleep in factual learning has been less clear. Now Matthew Tucker at The City University of New York and his colleagues have shown that even a nap with no REM sleep can help. Volunteers were told to memorise pairs of words (a test of factual learning) and to practise tracing images in a mirror (action learning). When they were tested straight afterwards and 6 hours later, those who had been allowed a nap of up to 1 hour before the re-test scored 15 per cent better in the factual test than the non-nappers, but no better in the action test

Weathercaster

Good news! America's sexiest newscaster is a Filipina. Twenty-nine year old Elita Loresca,a weather forecaster for WSVN-Channel & in South Florida won the crown in ana online poll in the US edition of FHM Magazine.'Elita has done more than Ace Ventura to protect South Florida,'' FHM US wrote in its October 2006 issue. ``And she has also done it with a better figure than Al Roker'' Roker is the famous overweight sportscaster in NBC’s Today Show. A slap to the Philippine’s penchant for favoring mestizas as news anchors, Loreta is dusky and has long straight hair. She was also in number 272 in the Top 300 Most Kissable Lips Ever.Loresca was born in the Philippines and settled in the West Coast before going coast-country to work in another semitropical area in Florida. Although she was featured in the current FHM issue wearing a very revealing powder blue attire, Loresca is no mere newsreader. She was a Broadcast journalism graduate at California State Fullerton and is completing her Certificate of Meteorology at Mississipi State University. She earned her ropes as a journalist. It was hard to imagine that this “sexiest newscaster” was once an obituary writer for The Orange County Register in California. Loresca went into broadcasting in 2000 as the weather anchor for KGET-TV in Bakersfield, California and later became its weeknight assignment editor. Two years ago, Loresca became daily news anchor for KGPE 47 News in Fresno, California before transferring to equally balmy Florida last year. 'When I auditioned, they wanted to know if I could deal with anything thrown my way -- then we had hurricanes every week for my first six weeks. I repeated stuff I heard the night before on The Weather Channel; I'd mention `northeast quadrant' because it sounded smart. I even went to the bookstore and got a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Weather,” Loreta said in FHM. In calling her “Best Weathercaster” last year, the Palm Beach-based New Times wrote: “Instead of going the tried-and-true route of replacing (Jackie) Johnson with another bubbly blond, the TV station chose exotic bombshell Elita Loresca, whose oval-shaped eyes and glistening black hair give her a cat-like beauty.”

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Sept. 21

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The porn that's clogging your e-mail inbox isn't always sent by some lonely pervert getting his kicks in a shabby apartment, or by marketing companies trying to make a buck on X-rated merchandise. A top researcher says you could also be getting spammed by aliens on a distant planet! Astrophysicist Dr. Paul Winterhoof says aliens have "hijacked" the satellite transmissions that connect computers on the Internet, and are using them to contact Earth women with lurid claims about their sexual prowess -- or to entice Earth men with offers of miraculous performance-enhancing drugs and gadgets.

Rockers

Bookplated

I remembered reading 20 years ago in The Manila Times Magazine about the bookplates of Filipino greats. Now we are in the minority. Maybe only 10 percent of the people in the Congress reads (and Teddyboy may just be the exception) so we rule. You are what you read and your bookplate is your destiny. Here's some from this wonderful link.That of Rockefeller was made by Picasso.

A Lesson in Probability

Monday, September 18, 2006

Monkey Bar

Rumour's, our favorite Irish bar in Baguio, has changed hands last September 1. The new owners took out all those stupid kitschy pictures ont he walls. My favorite is the huge poster of the chimpanzee at the end of the bar. This is not the one but this is apt.

A Poem from David Wright

If Poets Ruled

Forget the world. Even a small,previously nomadic batch of tribes,favorably attuned to his public voice,as they build a bare land into oasis,will fade from view when the poet-kingfinds himself captive in the small cleftat the base of his neighbor’s back. She bathes,and he turns to the lyric, a honeyed songhe pulls from the hive below his belly,the strain of a need so resonant that now,though he foresees a war, a few more wars,a murder or two, a beloved son’s wild rideand death, his own public scaldingby a prophet, the scouring of his skinwith hyssop and stone, he’ll risk it.He knows this chord, selah. How longit lasts: song of songs, generations hence.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

TEXT TEXT

This is a message from BCPO:

Students are usually the victims of crime because communication is easy with the use of cellphone. There were already some incidents of a modus operandi using teenagers as bait. They will lure their victims, usually high school and college girls, through text then after getting the trust and confidence of their victims, the suspect will ask the victim to meet in a certain place. Afterwhich, two teenagers will meet them posing as cousins of their textmate. The suspect will call to the victim and tells her to pass on the phone to his cousin because he will tell something. Upon getting the phone, the suspects will talk to each other then the person posing as cousin will suddenly run with the cellphone in his possession. They usually get the number of their victims in chat rooms, random texting or through passing the numbers from acquaintances or friends to be their textmates. Everyone is alerted on this type of modus operandi. Not all textmates have the intention of being friends. Young people nowadays are so engrossed with texting to meet people. We understand that this is the stage where they express their sexuality but we would like to caution them to be extra careful with people they do not know. Teenagers nowadays, especially those belonging to certain fraternities or groups, may not know that they are only being used to carry out these kinds of activities and when they get arrested, no one from their group might even help them. Sometimes they do it for fear for their lives without actually wanting to do the crime.Parents are advised to check on the activities of their children to protect them from any form of danger. These youngsters may all be victims in this situation and it is better to correct it now than for them to suffer the consequences after the crime has been made. The people behind should be made accountable for deceiving and abusing the ignorance and innocence of these young people. Let us help make our children good citizens and let us guide them for a better future.

Bungo for Whatever

Bobby Ortega aka Bungo is definitely running. He said so to me. But to what position, he doesn't know yet. He said that half of the barangay captains in Baguio already approached him to run. He said he still owes the city. I don't know his utang to us, people, but he will definitely scare a lot of people. He said that he has not done anything outside the law. But if made to choose between the law and justice, Bungo said he will choose justice. He said he never lost sleep over a person he presumably killed. When he was jefe de pulisya or as they say now at the BCPO, polizia, during the EDSA Revolution days, there were a lot of salvagings. Taloy Sur became notorious as the dumping ground. Some businesspeople even rallied for him but those were the Human Rights times. Here's some classic Bungo jokes as he told it on radio: Oy mga magnanakaw diyan. Wala akong masasabi sa inyo kasi trabaho nyo lang iyan. Pero parang awa niyo na, umalis na kayo sa Baguio. Leave Baguio in peace or else in three days, you will rest in peace. His new one is longer: There were two brothers terrorizing a barangay in Baguio. People were afraid to fight them because they killed and even raped those who do. One recent day (as I was amde to believe), the two brothers were gone. They asked Bungo. Bungo said, Well, I got them a job. In Iraq. He was not joking.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

"Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" and other Homer quotes

Operator! Give me the number for 911! Oh, so they have internet on computers now!Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love! Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand. I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman. Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers. Well, it's 1 a.m. Better go home and spend some quality time with the kids. Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding, 'You're making a scene.' Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel. Doughnuts. Is there anything they can't do? You know, boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like a woman. You just have to read the manual and press the right buttons. Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV! Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get. I'm going to the back seat of my car, with the woman I love, and I won't be back for ten minutes! [Meeting Aliens] Please don't eat me! I have a wife and kids. Eat them! What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts. Marge, you're as beautiful as Princess Leia and as smart as Yoda. Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws! When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something. I'm having the best day of my life, and I owe it all to not going to Church! Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such. I'm not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell? Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races. It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day. Lisa, Vampires are make-believe, like elves, gremlins, and eskimos. I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here. Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that. Remember that postcard Grandpa sent us from Florida of that Alligator biting that woman's bottom? That's right, we all thought it was hilarious. But, it turns out we were wrong. That alligator was sexually harrassing that woman. Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use. How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive? Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover. Homer no function beer well without. I've always wondered if there was a god. And now I know there is -- and it's me. Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream? If something goes wrong at the plant, blame the guy who can't speak English. I'm never going to be disabled. I'm sick of being so healthy. I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my homosexuals flaming. [Looking at a globe map...country being Uruguay] Hee hee! Look at this country! 'You-are-gay.' All my life I've had one dream, to achieve my many goals. Dad, you've done a lot of great things, but you're a very old man, and old people are useless. But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder. I think Smithers picked me because of my motivational skills. Everyone says they have to work a lot harder when I’m around. Dear Lord.. The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here's the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won't ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal. That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college! Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing I'm in no condition to drive...wait! I shouldn't listen to myself, I'm drunk! 'To Start Press Any Key'. Where's the ANY key?

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Michael in Baghdad

Music Blog 3

Mga kaibigan sa nightclub, you must remember "Total Eclipse of The Heart." Don't you. This is the Top Song in Nonoy Marcelo's "Top 10 Hits sa Birhaus." This is the favorite song about very young girls in Leyte (I heard. Don't sue me). Well there is news from UPI that the singer of TETH, Bonnie Tyler, is back in the news. According to the news item, a stewardess of Air France (could only be Pinay)woke her up and let Tyler sing.

"I was asleep in First Class. The stewardess came and said the co-pilot was retiring. And they asked me would I sing to him. They were having a bit of a party," Tyler said.

Kailangang ipailandakan pa niya na First Class. Ok. What could have been a party turned out to be a nightmare. Some passengers are planning to sue Air France because they were traumatized by the whole thing.Obviously, walang Pinoy na nakasakay dito.

"The claim against Air France, which it completely rejects, is that the celebrations got more and more unruly and came to a climax when Bonnie sang," the airline said.